1,720,961 research outputs found
Integrated Cognitive Rehabilitation Home-Based Protocol to Improve Cognitive Functions in Multiple Sclerosis Patients: A Randomized Controlled Study
No full textCognitive impairment (CI) occurs in about 40–65% of people with multiple sclerosis (MS) during the disease course. Cognitive rehabilitation has produced non-univocal results in MS patients. Objective: The present study aimed to evaluate whether an Integrated Cognitive Rehabilitation Program (ICRP) in MS patients might significantly improve CI. Methods: Forty patients with three phenotypes of MS were randomly assigned into two groups: the experimental group (EG, n = 20), which participated in the ICRP for 10 weeks of training; and the control group (CG, n = 20). All participants’ cognitive functions were assessed at three timepoints (baseline, post-treatment, and 3-month follow-up) with the California Verbal Learning (CVLT), Brief Visuospatial Memory (BVMTR), Numerical Stroop, and Wisconsin tests. Results: When compared to CG patients, EG patients showed significant improvements in several measures of cognitive performance after ICRP, including verbal learning, visuospatial memory, attention, and executive functions. Conclusions: Home-based ICRP can improve cognitive functions and prevent the deterioration of patients’ cognitive deficits. As an integrated cognitive rehabilitation program aimed at potentiation of restorative and compensatory mechanisms, this approach might suggest an effective role in preserving neuronal flexibility as well as limiting the progression of cognitive dysfunction in MS
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
A two-layer capacitor-based power management system for a stack of microbial fuel cells
Full text linkWhile the penetration rate of renewable and sustainable energies is growing daily, the demand for newer sources and more efficient energy harvesting has been growing. Microbial fuel cells (MFC), as a sustainable energy source, have gained a lot of attention recently from scientists in different fields. This alternative source of energy can use any organic matter including urban or industrial wastewater as fuel to produce energy and does not emit any greenhouse gas as a byproduct.
Given the low power density of MFCs, it is very important to design efficient and adaptive power management systems (PMS). These systems will produce usable power and voltage for load while managing high fluctuations of the MFCs. This study aims to design a new PMS that will increase the mean output power of the stack of MFCs by detecting faulty and lowperforming MFC(s) and disconnecting them from the stack. In this approach mean power output of various prospective actions is estimated and the action that results in higher output power is selected by the PMS. Although removing MFC units from the stack causes small potential losses over a brief period after disconnection, it is important to evaluate the PMS in long-term operation. To control the frequency, accuracy, and robustness of the PMS and avoid potential losses, a hysteresis control method, a simple moving average approach and a cooldown timer have been implemented. These additional control methods help the PMS to adjust its tolerance to low-performing MFCs, base its decision on multiple cycles to eliminate the effect of noise in measurement and avoid repetitive connections and disconnections.
The harvested energy is then sent to a boost converter to deliver a usable voltage to the load. This boost converter will help the PMS to increase the magnitude of the output voltage and regulate the voltage using a proportional integral (PI) controller.
To evaluate the performance of this PMS, more than 100 measurements were taken from four MFCs in the lab and two test cases were constructed to replicate their behavior by a simple electrical equivalent model based on the measurements. These measurements were taken in different ambient and operational conditions, so the test cases can represent a wide variety of MFC behavior. This testing framework was implemented in MATLAB Simulink® and the proposed PMS was tested under this testing framework. Although the proposed PMS can theoretically manage an infinite number of MFCs in a stack, for practical reasons a stack of four MFCs was chosen as an example. The results show that the proposed PMS is able to successfully detect and disconnect faulty and low-performing MFC from the stack, is resistant to electrical noise and disturbances and manages to increase the mean output power compared to a similar PMS proposed by a former study (Nguyen et al., 2019). The proposed PMS presents an increase in mean output power of up to 67% without voltage regulation and an increase of up to 23% with voltage regulation compared to the former study (Nguyen et al., 2019)
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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